I have only been following League for about 15 years but in that time I feel there have been 3 dynasties: Storm, Roosters and Manly.
Of those, the Manly one to me has no asterisk next to it. The Roosters one was full of players they have bought in, all Superstars. Melbourne's had an * next to them until Cam retired IMO.
Manly out of all, have had about 3 grand final wins And 5 grand finals during Des' first stint there. During a time of wrestle and second man plays only, Manly won each game through brute strength. They just wanted it a lot more than everyone else. One of the toughest teams I've seen.
In terms of singular years, the 2009 performance by the man who shouldn't be named is the best individual performance over a whole year. They literally changed it to the 7 tackle rule because teams were kicking the ball out because they didn't want him to carry it back. Idk if there has ever been a rule changed because of one man.
Lastly the Cowboys performance of 2017? To get to the grand final without your two co-captains is a huge achievement. And they had this "got nothing to loose" mentality. They never lied down in tackles, never gave away deliberate penalties, never tried to run out the clock. They just played each play as it came. I was obsessed with re-watching their games in that series.
